


Traditions

by mabrookhabibi



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: ALSO not beta read, Allura isn't dead, M/M, Traditions, anyway, i haven't written and posted publicly since like 2016 so go easy on me, making their own, season 8 barely happened, sharing traditions, the lions are still there fight me on it, this is a late xmas exhance b/c im horrible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:15:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22095472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mabrookhabibi/pseuds/mabrookhabibi
Summary: In which Keith and Lance share a tradition with each other and go on to create their own.also a very late holiday exchange gift for essy!it's been awhile (re: almost 4 years) since i've written & posted something publicly so hopefully this doesn't entirely suck. i've taken some traditions that my friends celebrate as inspiration but also a really brief convo essy & I had as inspiration.not beta read b/c it's very late and i just got off a 9 hour shift.
Relationships: Keith & Lance (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	Traditions

  1. _Keith. Hana Matsuri. Post Galran Invasion of Earth, somewhere in New Mexico. April 8th._



His new home enough space to set up an altar. He chooses a corner, pushes a small side table flush against the wall. He adds a woven mat, and on top, goes a small wooden block. To the table, Keith adds two brand new candles, a small empty bowl that he fills with fresh water, and a small plate filled with cherry blossoms. On the highest point, Keith reverently places the small Buddha statuette given to him by Shiro. 

The altar isn’t front and center in the room. And Lance doesn’t notice it the first few times he’s over. It’s only one morning, when he follows Keith out of bed and drape himself over his back as he makes coffee. 

Keith’s back rumbles with his laughter, “Lance, if you want coffee and food, you need to detach.”

Lance’s arms cinch tighter around Keith’s shoulders and he goes deadweight, “Oh _noooo_ , gravity. Guess you’ll have to carry me back to bed and stay there with me to make sure it doesn’t crush us all.”

Snorting, Keith turns, knees bending and arms swiping Lance’s legs out from under him. Unceremoniously, he crosses the small kitchen and deposits Lance onto a bar stool and separates with a kiss to his forehead. A cup of coffee gets deposited in front of him moments later. 

One hand wrapped around the mug, Lance uses the other to prop his head up. Keith busies himself unwrapping a bundle of flowers, trimming stems and plucking leaves and petals to place in a small bowl. It’s silence between them as their morning stretches on. But it’s easy. It’s comfortable. There’s no need to fill it with chatter. 

He watches Keith cross the kitchen and crouch down. He upturns a small bowl of water into a plant by the small table, replaces it back on the table, and fills it carefully with fresh water. Next, the two half-melted candles get lit with a single match. He adds the small leaves and flower petals into the bowl of water, dips his fingers in, and raises his hand to drip the fragrant water over the small Buddha statuette. 

Another beat of silence passes, Keith still crouched low and head bowed. Lance takes a sip of his coffee and watches. Only when Keith rises fluidly to his feet does Lance ask, “Hydrangeas?”, reaching across the counter to brush fingertips across petals. 

“Shiro.” Keith states, as if that’s all the explanation needed. Which, it kind of is. “He, uh, grew up Buddhist. Although, he’ll tell you that Japanese Buddhism also takes a lot of Shinto beliefs into consideration but that’s a whole other conversation that lasted for--”

“Keith!” Lance laughs, hand reaching and grasping his, “You’re rambling. Explain or don’t. It’s okay.”

It’s a Tuesday. Unassuming in every single way. But, Keith thinks, he prefers it that way for this kind of conversation. He takes a breath, “When Shiro and Adam, um, took me in...I was a lot more angry. And Shiro’s whole  _ ‘patience yields focus’ _ schtick comes from a lot of what he takes away from his Buddhist upbringing.”

Keith pours himself a cup of coffee, rounds the counter, and settles in. From the other room, there’s a muted little growl and the click-clack of claws against hardwood as Kosmo wakes up and joins them. “I don’t know...” Keith muses, “I’ve picked up a lot of different traditions and stuff from the homes I had to live in. I still light a menorah every night during Hanukkah. I don’t know if I even believe in a higher power, but sometimes a Mosque during Friday prayer is a different kind of peace to experience.” 

He shrugs, fingers tapping against the porcelain of his coffee mug, “Sunday Mass feels different with your family than it did when some of the homes would make us go. It feels like more of a safe place. I like the traditions, the rituals.” Keith motions to the altar, gets a small little smile on his face, “This is  _ Hana Matsuri _ , uh, it’s a flower festival in Japan but it’s also the Buddha’s birthday. Shiro took me to a festival in Los Angeles one year in Little Tokyo...there were flowers everywhere, and people running around and the shops were all open. The shrine at the cultural center was massive.”

And he knows his small little altar isn’t the large flower festival he knows goes on in Japan during this time of year. But it’s an important piece of him he carries, and he’s glad he got to share it with Lance.

  1. _Lance. Buena Noche, Alvarez-McClain family home. Varadero Beach, Cuba. December 24th._



A whole pig.  _ Holy shit, that’s a literal, entire, big-ass pig _ . They weren’t joking. Even by Keith’s standards, the back end of the Alvarez-McClain home in Cuba is a madhouse. He’s 84% sure the plate he’s holding in his hands isn’t the one he initially picked up...considering the one he picked up had been empty, one he never put down, but now has a couple dozen fried plantains on it, a spoonful of rice and beans, and barely any more room left on it, but will need to hold at least another four food items before it can even be deemed full by the watchful eyes of every single mother in the family.

In the past week, Keith had been dragged all over to go shopping. Just yesterday, he’d been pulled out of bed by Lance and his brother damn well near sunrise, and they’d been out the door before he could even question it. It was almost surreal to be waiting in line, cups of Cuban coffee passed between them, only for him to realize the market wouldn’t open for another hour. 

He’s peeled garlic and sweet plantains, learned what oil is best for frying them, made (and messed up) the flan with Veronica. His hands still smell of lemons and sautéed onions and it’s a pleasant mix that fills him with the nice warmth of inclusion. 

Lance’s mami had stolen him earlier and tried to teach him how to salsa, while his father and uncles played an old guitar and tapped a beat on a small drum. An aunt and cousin were warbling soft lyrics in the background, their voices deep and soulful. Keith laughed and stumbled through the steps. 

He watches Lance flit around his family members, speaking in rapid fire spanish and doing that wild gesticulating that Keith finds incredibly endearing. It’s been a long day, and a longer week even, preparing everything for today. They had arrived in Varadero the week before, the Red Lion dropping them off with a flourish only Lance could achieve as her pilot before speeding off back towards the Castle and other lions. 

Keith fully falls asleep at the table. Arms-folded-head-down completely knocked out. Keith only wakes up as Lance gently nudges him awake, eyes soft and mouth pulled into a smile as he brushes fringe from Keith’s eyes. “Hey there,” Lance whispers, fitting himself on the ledge of the chair. “Some of the family is going to midnight mass. We’re going down to the beach, do you want to come with or head up to bed? I know it’s been a lot.” 

There’s some muffled cursing behind them. Blinking, Keith turns, watches Luis and Marco try and force a bare Christmas tree through the side door of them home. “Wha--?”

“We’re going to take the older one down to the beach and light a bonfire with it.” Lance explains, voice soft. His fingers brush through the ends of Keith’s hair; Keith leans into it. “We do it every year”

Keith nods, trying to shake the last bit of exhaustion. He and Lance unfold themselves from the plastic chair, only to trudge across the sand and pretzel themselves together on another. Veronica nails Lance in the face with a bundled blanket as she joins them. “Don’t be rude!” Lance squeaks, flailing. 

“Rude would be me giving you the thin blanket with the fire burns on it.” She cackles, settling into her own chair. Keith just chuckles, smoothing the blanket over their laps and enjoying the heat and weight of Lance against his side. 

It’s quiet for a bit, sounds from the family filtering down the beach. They just sit and watch Marco and Luis try sit up the little fire pit, trying and failing to keep the tree from falling. 

“We started doing this a few years ago.” Lance admits, fingers folding through his own. “We were all away from home and couldn’t make it back for this fire festival in the summer...the festival was fun and a part of our childhood.” 

A spark catches, they watch as the tree goes up in a big ball of flame. The warmth is nice in the chill of the beach’s wind. “The festival happens in July, but it’s all about sharing the different cultures in Cuba and ends with burning the devil.” 

“It’s supposed to symbolize t he liberation of good, happiness and festiveness. Everyone dances around the fire and they light fireworks.”  Lance laughs, leans more heavily into Keith. His fingers twist tighter around Keith’s; he squeezes once, twice, holds the pressure, and releases. “I dunno, it was just nice for us to have a tradition of our own when we had to be so far from home.”

  1. _Keith & Lance. McClain-Kogane home. December 31st. ‘Usmas’_



It starts about a year after they’re married. They’ve only just gotten back from the belated Christmas with the other Paladins (a tradition started, admittedly, after about 8 months in space. They’d realized they had no idea what day it was on Earth, time equivalences with the Alteans was still fuzzy. Their calculations ended up being a few days off, but the tradition stuck). The personal gifts, Lance and Keith agreed, could wait until all the family celebrations were done and over. 

_ “Blue moon, you saw me standin' alone, without a dream in my heart, without a love of my own.  
_ _ Blue moon, you knew just what I was there for _ _...” _

Their tree is still up, wrapping paper remains littered beneath it. A newly-gifted restored 20th-century record player sits on their coffee table, an old Frank Sinatra record warbling in the open expanse of their living room. 

_ “You heard me sayin' a prayer for someone I really could care for...” _

Keith flips the empty sleeve from the vinyl record over, thumb running over the printed text. The record player itself is almost an exact replica of the one his father had kept hidden, reverent, in his room back in their old house. He had only ever brought it out on nights they spent out of their deck, paired with a meticulously cared for telescope. 

Keith only ever had one photo of himself with his father, and when he found his mother, the collection grew to a total of three. Two of them featured the record player somewhere in the background, and the mention of it was the closest Keith had ever seen Krolia come to tears. 

_ “And then there suddenly appeared before me, the only one my arms will hold.  
_ _ I heard somebody whisper "please adore me" and when I looked, the moon had turned to gold...” _

In the doorway, haloed by the tiny lights strung around the tree, appears Lance. He’s bundled in a thickly knitted sweater--with only a couple skipped stitches and a few visible fumbles in the needles--and two fresh cups of _café con leche_. It had taken nearly two months for Keith to finish the sweater--the first project he ever took on his own. 

When Lance and his family had moved to the United States, his grandmother had knitted them all thick, woolen sweaters. It didn’t matter that they had initially moved to Miami, and later on to New Mexico, where the weather was nearly the same. Every year, Lance would sit down with his grandmother when she would visit and help her finish. 

She had passed away while they had been stuck in space, and it was something Lance had taken very hard. It wasn’t until his oldest sweater from her--worn only in his apartment, and later on their home, had started to unravel that Lance had told him the stories behind them. The old sweater had been salvaged, the wool rolled into a skein and used in the new sweater. 

Rolling to his feet, Keith slides the cups from Lance’s hands and deposits them on the coffee table. The sudden movement makes Kosmo perk his head up from his sprawl across the (entire) couch, a huge bow tied comically around his collar. “Keith-wha--?”

He folds his hands into Lance’s, one dropping to the small of his back and pressing lightly. It brings them flush together, the blue of Lance’s eyes darkened in the dim light. Keith leans their foreheads together, noses brushing, “I love you.”

Lance squawks, hand swatting Keith’s shoulder, but relaxes into the touch. His eyes slide close and Lance exhales, hands tightening around Keith’s shoulders. His feet start to lead them before he can respond, “I love you, too.”

_ “Blue moon, now I'm no longer alone, without a dream in my heart, without a love of my own...” _

They deem December 31st not only New Year’s Eve, but also ‘ _ Usmas _ ’ (Lance’s handiwork). They take the day for themselves, exchanging gifts and the opportunity to be in each other’s orbit. The tradition of gifts and a dance continues on, gaining tiny hands gripped in their own and tiny feet standing on their toes, memories, and years. 


End file.
